Special Education Association of B.C.

Eunice Lee

Background Information

What is the name of your professional association or specialist organization?

l            Special Education Association of B.C.

How did you find out about it?

l            http://bctf.ca/sea/

l            In an email sent by Dave Dunnigan

What is the mandate of the association?

l            “The goal of SEA is to promote awareness, acceptance, and personal excellence for students with special needs through communications with members in the educational field and in the community.”

l            “We are here to support teachers in their efforts to provide a quality education experience for students with special learning needs.”

What kinds of projects is your association currently working on?

l            The SEA magazine, Crosscurrents

l            The SEA online book club

l            Differentiated Instruction Wikki

l            The annual provincial Crosscurrents Conference

l            Support for local Special Education Association Chapters

l            Support of local chapters’ professional development activities

What other organizations does it work with?

l    PSAs, the BCTF, and the government ministries

Special Education Association Article

The Special Education Association of B.C. contains many resource papers that provide an excellent discussion of the roles, responsibilities, and challenges of specialist support teachers. In an article entitled “The Challenge of Specialist Support Teachers –Learning Assistance, ESL, and Special Education –in multiple roles” the BCTF research team seeks to explore how the legislative and contractual changes concerning specialist-support-teacher ratios and targeted funding affect the quality of teaching and support of specialist support teachers in ESL, Learning Assistance, and Special Education. This research paper, conducted in the 2002/03 school year, examined the provision of ESL, Special Education, and Learning Assistance in two school districts, Nanaimo and Coquitlam. Findings show that there was a much greater reduction among specialist support staff in the three areas than among the general teaching population.  Further, the capacity of specialist support teachers to meet students’ needs was severely impacted because of the increasing caseload. Many specialist support staff are now having to carry the “multiple roles” assignment because of severe education cuts. In other words, staff with little or no training or experience in some areas of specialization are required to deal with areas such as ESL, Learning Assistance, and Special Education in one job package. As a result, students with extra assistance are getting inadequate level of support from specialist support staff, contact with students and classroom teachers is reduced because of the increased demands of the multiple roles, less paperwork and documentation are being completed by specialist support teachers, and finally, both classroom and specialist support teachers are reporting high levels of stress because of the strain of meeting students’ needs with fewer resources.  It is critical to realize that the concerns that stem from the significantly-reduced levels of support affect specialist support teachers, classroom teachers, and most importantly, students who are the most needy. Numerous strategies are suggested at the end of the article to meet this challenge.

Social Issue of Importance:

Knowing the limited support for ESL/Learning Assistance/Special Education students in the classroom, how can we, as teachers, foster an environment that meets the needs of all students?

Pedagogical Strategy

Modifying curriculum and pedagogy to meet the needs of all learners.

·                     In every lesson, I will try to develop a modified lesson to meet the needs of students with learning disabilities or special needs. If the student has an IEP, I will try to adapt the curriculum according to suggestions provided in the report. This may involve delivering my teaching instructions in an alternative way. For example, if one of my students had difficulty hearing, I would try to incorporate more visuals in my teaching. I could use the computer to type up the lesson notes, give the student a hard copy of lesson notes, or write the lesson notes on the board. I would also allow my students to represent their learning and understanding through a variety of ways. For example, an ESL student in my class may find great difficulty in writing an essay. I would encourage him or her to create a power point presentation to display their knowledge instead. If the student begins to show signs that he or she is capable of expressing knowledge through written language, I would break the task into smaller steps so they can always succeed. For instance, I would get the student to start by writing short sentences, then small paragraphs, and eventually, produce essays. 

Why It Is Important To Educators

Almost always, educators will be in a situation where they will have to deal with a class of different learners. It is important for educators to recognize that they cannot solely depend on specialist support teachers as the demand is greater than the supply. Nonetheless, as educators, it is always our responsibility to ensure that all our students can learn and be successful. Although the workload may increase, we will have to find other strategies, support, and resources, to meet the needs of all learners.

Scholastic Instructor

Katie Toutges

"    What is the name of your professional association or specialist organization?
Scholastic Instructor

"    How did you find out about it (provide details such as urls)?
I found it while browsing the journals in Scarfe Education library

"    What is the mandate of the association? 
The mandate is to give teachers a resource to find new and creative ideas to implement into the classroom as well as to highlight issues of current importance in education.

"    What kinds of projects is your association currently working on (e.g., publications, mission statements, professional development initiatives, collaborations with museums, conferences, etc)? 
A new feature of Scholastic is their website scholastic.com/elmersgluecrew.
This website is focused on Elmers glue crew recycling program and contains many activities to enforce the the R's, reduce, reuse, recycle.

Another project they have is Scholastic teacher share, teachershare.scholastic.com.
This website is a free online network for teachers to download and post lesson plans.

"    Who are its funders? I was unable to find any information regarding Scholastic Instructor's funders, however, it does fall under the wider umbrella of Scholastic, a major children's book distributor.
 
"    How would you describe the possible link of this group to your teaching?
This group can be linked to my teaching in a variety of ways.  Through the association I can gain many great lesson plan ideas, as well as keep current with what are effective methods to use in the classroom.
 
"    What other organizations does it work with?
One major organization it works with is St. Judes Children's hospital.  Scholastic designs math activity books for St. Jude's math-a-thon fundraising program. 

They also work with Fiskars (scissors), providing lesson plans involving cutting with scissors.

They prepare Earth day lesson plans with Elmers Glue.

Volume 119(5), March/April 2010 of Scholastic Instructor, a journal for K-8 educators, contains an article that discusses combing fundraising with curriculum to raise money for children in need.  In an article entitled, "Kids Give Back With New "Learn-A-Thons": From Spelling Bees to Math Challenges, Kids Raise Funds While Mastering Skills", author Sascha Zuger demonstrates that students are learning new skills while also developing a sense of compassion for their community and for children in need.  Scholastic Instructor partnered with St. Jude's Children's Hospital to create a math fun book featuring characters called numerators who use super powers of division, subtraction, multiplication and addition to battle childhood cancer.  The books also feature personal stories of children battling cancer.  Students collect pledges for each activity completed in the book and are rewarded in the end with a presentation from St. Jude, showing them exactly what their money raised was used for.

An additional pedagogical strategy that I would use to educate students about children in need would use a combination of art and language arts.  I would have the children decorate a small paper lunch bag and then write up a letter of encouragement.  Finally, I would have the children donate some small toys or games to put in the bags.  These bags would then be handed out at a local children's hospital.   

Benchmarks of Historical Thinking

Vincent Martin                                    
       

1. Benchmarks of Historical Thinking
http://www.histori.ca/benchmarks/

Questions:
What should students know after 12 years of studying history in school? What should they be able to do with their knowledge? Surely they should have more than an accumulation of memorized facts to show for years of study?
Mandate:
The Benchmarks Project combines the research of historians and educators with the experience and skills of classroom teachers to create practical ways of encouraging, promoting, and assessing students' historical thinking in classroom settings.
Benchmarks aims to provide social studies departments, local boards, provincial ministries of education, publishers and public history agencies with models of more meaningful history assessment, teaching, and learning for their students and audiences.
Current Projects:

Benchmarks is currently focussed on advancing the cause of Social Studies as a discipline of inquiry rather than a discipline devoted to the transmission of fact.

For instance Dr. Carla Peck - a member of the Benchmarks Project Executive Steering Committee - recently received the Canadian Education Association's Pat Clifford Award for Early Career Research in Education. Dr. Peck's work addressed the following question: in what ways, and to what extent, do students' ethnic identities influence their perceptions of Canadian history? Thus Dr. Peck, like Benchmarks, focused her work on an analysis of the link between individual Canadian students and the curriculum they are taught. 

Links to My Teaching:

The Benchmarks project provides educators of Canadian history an excellent resource on concepts of historical thinking and provides a toolkit for teaching Canadian history. My job as a teacher will be to find ways to connect these concepts (historical significance, primary source evidence, continuity and change, cause and consequence, historical perspectives, and ethical interpretations) with tools for practical teaching (lesson plans, documents, photographs, websites, literature etc).


Affiliated Partners:

"    The History Education Network/Histoire et Éducation en Réseau (THEN/HiER)
"    Canada's History
"    CBC News in Review
"    Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness
"    Library and Archives Canada
"    Canadians and Their Pasts
Funding:
The Government of Canada (through the Department of Canadian Heritage's Canadian Studies Program).
2. Example of an Association Resource:

In "What I did During my Summer Vacation," published in the Ottawa Tribune on August 31st 2010, Barbara Brockmann - a grade six teacher from Ontario - discussed the difficulties she faced in connecting all members of her classroom to concepts of Canadian history and culture. Brockmann agreed with University of British Columbia Professor Peter Sexias, when she argued that the teaching of Social Studies has become too fact driven, as teachers were pressured to cram content from large time periods into single courses.

To better engage students in her classes, Brockmann encouraged her students to find connections between historic events and their own lives. For Brockmann, if Elementary schools began the process of shaping concepts of Canadian history and culture at a young age, by the time students reached Secondary school they would be much better prepared to question narratives of Social Studies which may be exclusive. By problematizing Canadian history, students would be prepared to seek out a more inclusive picture of Canadian history.

http://www.histori.ca/benchmarks/sites/default/files/Benchmarks_OttawaCitizen.PDF

3. Pedagogical Example

To better connect my students with the concept of Canadian culture and history I could have them trace their family's journey to Canada. Students would investigate their family's past by creating a family tree, interviewing members of their extended families, or researching the history of a community in an area (ex: the development of Chinatown in Vancouver or the construction of the Croatian Cultural Centre).

Media Awareness Network

Fay Sterne

Media Awareness Network (MNet) is a specialist organization for teachers as well as parents. Their mandate is “to promote media literacy and digital literacy by producing education and awareness programs and resources.” I discovered their website, http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/index.cfm, after a brief search on Google for a ‘BC professional association.’

MNet is an excellent resource for teachers who wish to educate young minds about the influences they encounter in the media as well as online. Some issues that are addressed are media violence, media stereo-typing, online hate, information privacy, as well as media and Canadian cultural policies. Teachers can find lesson plans, classroom activities, background articles, Canadian resources for media education as well as media education learning outcome charts for each grade. As a future English teacher, I was attracted to one lesson plan in particular: “TV Dads: Immature and Irresponsible?" This topic could be infused into a critical thinking unit in an English classroom. Teachers and parents may also be interested in the educational games that can be found on this website.

For the last ten years, MNet has been working on a research project entitled Young Canadians in a Wired World (YCWW). “It is Canada's largest and most comprehensive investigation of the role of the Internet in the lives of children and youth.” Phase I of the research, done in 2000-2001, “explored what young people do online, how they perceive the Internet and what they know about it.” They “focused on areas of risk such as private and adult-only chat rooms, meeting Internet friends in person, exposure to sexually-explicit and hateful material and sharing personal information.” Phase II findings, in 2003-2005, “confirm that hazards still exist for young people online, but that an increase in parental involvement has positive impacts.” MNet is currently raising funds for Phase III. Some of their partners and funders include Telus, Youtube, Bell, Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association, Entertainment Software Associations of Canada, Nova Scotia Teachers Union, The Manitoba's Teachers Society and CTV. 

Another organization that MNet connects with is the British Columbia Association for Media Education (BCAME). The members of this association “have provided numerous workshops and presentations at conferences and events across the province” in support of “media education training for British Columbia teachers.”

One example of the many issues that are addressed on MNet’s website can be found in a republished article titled "Web of Hate" by Ros Davidson. It was originally published in Salon, October 16, 1998. The article suggests that internet ‘hate sites’ are the cause of the rise in hate crimes. "Experts say the Internet is playing a central role, allowing hate groups to recruit, network and plan events more easily..." The author believes that 'hate sites' target youth and young adults in attempts to recruit more potential leaders to their groups. They use 'hate music' as well as games with white-supremacist themes to influence younger audiences. The article also mentions that anti-homosexuality is a large part of the propaganda on these 'hate sites.' This was of particular interest to me, because of the numerous hate crimes against homosexuals that has been reported in the news lately. It is important to note that many of these websites are technically sophisticated and the common public may be directed to their sites without ever looking for them. Hate, prejudice and racism are issues in every society and in every decade. MNet recognizes that students are constantly surfing the net and that it is essential for adults to be aware of the potential dangers online. This comes to play in particular when a teacher assigns online research as homework.

            As a pedagogical approach to this social issue, I could have my students find one of these sites and deconstruct the propaganda that is found there. The students would describe the information they find and then have them research other (more credible) resources to see if the information on the ‘hate site’ is factual or not. This way the students are learning to question what they read or hear. It would be a lesson in critical thinking. They could also research possible reasons for these hateful views. ‘Where do they come from?’ However, I am aware of the danger in this tactic. The controversial material could offend parents, administrators, as well as some students. It is possible that some students may agree with the material found on the ‘hate site.’ This pedagogical approach would need to be introduced slowly and carefully with the support of the administration.

            In conclusion, I believe the Media Awareness Network is a very useful organization for teachers. Their resources are relevant and interesting for students as well as adults. There is no question that our society is saturated with the media. It is important that as teachers we can instruct our students on how to maneuver through the media and how to think critically about what they find.

The College Art Association

Joanna Jedrzejczyk

The CAA (College Art Association) can be found at www.collegeart.org.

This association aims to promote excellence in teaching art. It also facilitates the exchange of ideas between artists and those interested in art history. The CAA speaks out on issues affecting the visual arts and humanities and publishes several academic journals including Art Journal and The Art Bulletin that focus on artists and art practices in the fields of art, art history, and architecture. Its 14,000 individual members and 2000 organization members are all dedicated to the practice of art, teaching, and research in the visual arts. At the moment, their five year strategic plan (2010-2015) is to focus on artists and designers, developing students and emerging scholars while continuing to server its members involved in the visual arts, scholarship, and education. They work with numerous other organizations (extensive list can be found on their website) and receive their funding from donations to the organization as well as publications and membership fees. This organization is relevant to art teachers as it actively promotes art giving it importance within the community and helping establish art as an important societal component. They also have journals where artists can submit articles, and these articles can be used within the curriculum and make art more relevant and applicable to students. These journals, more specifically the Art Bulletin and Art Journal, can show students not only what artists are capable of accomplishing but also what they are currently participating in and the social topics they tackle in their artwork. They are also a great tool in introducing educators and students to new artists, new forms of artistic expression, and examples of artwork pertaining to certain topics or techniques. Art constantly changes and evolves and so must art education, teachers need to be familiar with emerging artists and art practices which they can teach and apply in their classroom. The CAA also continuously strives for professionalism and innovative art education, something all teachers can strive for in their practice.

The Art Journal features articles written to reflect current artists, artist’s practices, and topics related to art and art education. One such series of articles from 2005 began with an article entitled “Eco-Tistical Art: An Experimental Initiative at the 2005 CAA Conference” and highlights the 2005 Atlanta Conference which tackled the topic of environmental issues in art. This set of articles noted that the major challenge art educators face is being aware and able to share their awareness of the ecological consequences of selecting different art mediums and techniques. The goal is to acknowledge the “correspondence between art making and ecosystems whereby every action is a cause that ripples as an effect that then becomes another cause” (Weintraub, 81). The immediate goals of the conference were to inspire teachers to introduce ecological practices into their classroom. This conference did in fact try to provide teachers the tools they needed to make this happen however, the article did not go into details regarding what exactly teachers could do. The CAA’s ultimate goal is to encourage the next generation of artists to be aware and a part of determining Earths ecological destiny. This series of articles then went on to discuss how the concept of Eco-Tistical art was formulated and examined several eco inspired artists and their work. It was noted that these artists have adopted ecological sound artistic practices and are working to raise awareness of ecology through their work.

In reading this series of articles I was motivated to further explore ecologically sound art and art practices and incorporate them into my classroom. The questions I would like to answer in my classroom are: “How can I educate my students on ecological art? and How can I promote ecologically sound practices in my classroom?” Using these articles as my basis for discussion I could breach the idea of ecological practices in the classroom and brainstorm ideas with my students as to how we could, as a class, be more ecological in our practices. Several ideas I came up with were using found, recycled, or old materials to create art, using recycled paper and making a conscious effort to recycle every time, reusing paints rather than throwing them away after every project, and researching companies that sell environmentally friendly art supplies. Having formulated our new ecologically friendly practices into a contract I could ask my students to sign the document promising to try their best to be environmentally friendly in the art classroom. These articles could also provoke a discussion on the ecologically conscious artists they explore. I could ask my students to work in groups, each group focusing on one of the artists(articles) and answer the who, what, where, how, and why of the article as well as how they could create an art piece promoting ecological practices that is also a piece of art work created using ecologically sound practices. This topic could also progress into a short study on found art and artists who use reused and recycled items to create their art work.

Association for Childhood Education International

Natalie Anderson

1.           The name of my organization is Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI).  I found out about this organization by searching for journals in the Education library that related to issues of elementary education and poverty.  I was directed to the journal of Childhood Education.  I looked through the issues and found one that had an article that interested me.  I then proceeded to learn more about the association that produced this publication by visiting the ACEI website <www.acei.org>.  The mission and vision statements of ACEI:

OUR MISSION

“is to promote and support in the global community the optimal education and development of children, from birth through early adolescence, and to influence the professional growth of educators and the efforts of others who are committed to the needs of children in a changing society.”

OUR VISION

“Every child in every nation will have access to a quality education. This education will prepare children to become responsible and engaged citizens and ready them for life in a changing world.”

      ACEI is involved in numerous projects.  For example, the organization publishes many different journals: Focus Forms, published quarterly; Childhood Education; Journal of Research in Childhood Education; Curriculum Development: Perspectives from Around the world.  ACEI also published books. “The Earth Is Our Home: Children Caring for the Environment” Ed. James L. Hoot is one of the organizations most recent publications.  Other endeavours include hosting yearly local (USA) and worldwide conferences.  The local conference for 2011 will be held April 13 to 16 in New Orleans, Louisiana.  ACEI is also involved in many other worldwide initiatives such as international exchange programs.  The exchange programs allow educators to travel to different countries to observe schools, universities, development agencies, non-governmental organizations, and foster relationships with educators all over the world.  ACEI also provides links to current international education policies and international forums.  Other organizations that ACEI is involved with are the United Nations and UNICEF.  ACEI has consultative status at the United Nations and is a member of the NGO committee of UNICEF. 

Although ACEI is based in the United States, I think that this organization would be a valuable resource for accessing materials such as books and journals that pertain to issues I will deal with in my future as an elementary school teacher.  The publications discuss a wide variety of educational issues such multiculturalism and environmental accountability.  I found the articles helpful because the authors discussed a topic and provided strategies which teachers can apply in the classroom to address that particular issue.  ACEI members are also eligible for awards, scholarships, and grants.  As I am interested in working in low-income schools, I feel that becoming a member of ACEI may be valuable in the future.  I think it would be wonderful to be part of an organization that provides its members with opportunities to secure funding for new school projects and programs as well as to nominate other educators or students for awards and scholarships. 

2.            Volume 86(4), Summer 2010 of the journal Childhood Education for educators and caregivers provides an informative discussion on integrating multiculturalism into the curriculum.  In an article entitled “More Alike Than Different: Promoting Respect Through Multicultural Book and Literacy Strategies” authors, Laurie J. Harper and Susan Trostle Brand explain how multicultural literature can be effectively used to foster children’s acceptance and understanding of human difference and similarity.[1]  More importantly, Harper and Trostle provide a checklist of criteria teachers can consult to ensure they are selecting high-quality multicultural literature for their primary students.   The authors also discuss five hands-on activities that teachers can use in the classroom: concept map, Venn diagram, open-minded Portrait, vocabulary cube, vocabulary puzzle.  These five activities have been designed using five specific children’s books.  However, the authors give many examples of other multicultural children’s books that could be adapted to these teaching strategies.  There is also a comprehensive list of high-quality literature resources at the end of the article. 

3.           When considering how to incorporate multiculturalism into the classroom teachers must be careful that their approaches do not perpetuate stereotypes or misconceptions.  I think this issue is important to my future as an educator.  However, I realize that I also need to approach it carefully and thoughtfully.  I read a number of articles online to brainstorm other pedagogical strategies I could use in my future classrooms.  Many authors criticized approaches that only celebrated “heroes and holidays.”  I want to avoid making these mistakes.  One of my textbooks discusses fostering “ethnic pride” in the classroom by incorporating students’ first languages into everyday practices.[2]  For example, teachers and schools should make it a priority to display multilingual signs as this gives students an opportunity to use their first language.  From a pedagogical perspective, teachers could assign reading and writing assignments and allow students to read a book that is written in their first language.   The written component would be completed in English but teachers could still encourage students to incorporate key vocabulary from their books into their written reflections.  I hope this activity would demonstrate to those students that speak other languages that the teacher values the language of all students in the class.  Other ideas I have to incorporate multiculturalism into the classroom include a family recipe assignment.  Students would be instructed to research and write out a recipe for a dish that is special to their family.  This would give students that eat dishes unique to a particular culture or heritage a chance to share this information with the class.  This would also be a great way to begin a discussion about different types of food and how people eat differently in other parts of the world. 

---

[1] Harper, J. Laurie and Susan Trostle Brand, “More Alike Than Different: Promoting Respect Through Multicultural Books and Literacy Strategies,” Childhood Education 86, no.4 (Summer 2010): 224-233.

[2] Woolfolk, Anite E., et.all, Educational Psychology, 4^th Ed. (Toronto: Pearson Canada, 2010), 89. 

The Imaginative Education Research Group

Aleksandra Waliszewska

Part 1: Background Information

a) Name of organization: The Imaginative Education Research Group (IERG)

b) URL: http://ierg.net

c) Mandate excerpt: “Connecting the child's imagination with the world is the key to much successful teaching and learning. That connection is the focus of our work. We want nothing less than to make the learning experiences of all children in all schools more interesting, meaningful, and imaginatively engaging. By developing teachers' and students' imaginations, we believe we can transform the experience of schooling, and help students become more knowledgeable, and more creative in their thinking.” (http://ierg.net/about/aims.html) The group’s core ideas are based on Kieran Egan’s work on imaginative education (http://ierg.net/about/whatis.html) and the use of storytelling (http://ierg.net/about/storytell.html). Dr. Egan is the Director of IERG and a professor at Simon Fraser University.

d) IERG regularly organizes conferences and workshops (http://ierg.net/workshops), publishes lesson and unit plan ideas, and conducts various research projects such as Dr. Sean Blenkinsop’s recently proposed “Aligning Education and Sustainability in Maple Ridge, BC: A Study of Place-Based Ecological Schooling” project (http://ierg.net/news-items/sean-blenkinsop-leads-a-1-000-000-project/) as well as the now completed LUCID project (http://ierg.net/LUCID/overview). In addition, IERG coordinates a network of educational researchers and offers a Masters of Education program (http://ierg.net/research).

e) Although funding details are not fully disclosed on the IERG website, it appears that the organization is funded primarily through membership fees, university grants (it is affiliated with Simon Fraser University), and research grants from major research funding bodies such as The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

f) This group is a great resource for teachers and researchers alike. It offers great professional development opportunities and publishes free lesson and unit plan ideas on its website. Its philosophical and theoretical underpinnings, which are continually empirically researched, offer an innovative and effective pedagogical strategy that promises to engage and motivate students.

g) IERG collaborates with various school districts throughout British Columbia as well as researchers throughout the world. Its ties are deepest with Simon Fraser University as its directors are all derived from SFU.  

Part 2: Resource review: Supplement to Teaching as Storytelling by Kieran Egan (PhD), Faculty of Education, SFU (http://ierg.net/assets/documents/ideas/supplement.PDF; excerpts: pp. 30-1, 35-40)

            The central social issue that IERG focuses on is the purpose of schools in contemporary society. They argue that a pedagogical shift is necessary “from an industrial age school system to a post-industrial system: from a system that attempts to squeeze people and thoughts into standardized boxes, often to the detriment of originality and adaptability, to a system that enables the unusual and effective to flourish wherever possible.” (italics added; http://ierg.net/about). IERG is less concerned with what we teach than how we teach. They propose that schools should be teaching in ways that inspire possibilities, creative thinking and engage students’ imaginations. One method to do this is what Egan calls teaching as storytelling.

            Supplement to Teaching as Storytelling focuses on how to use storytelling teaching strategies in the classroom. Egan describes a storytelling approach to teaching elementary students about maps. First, Egan establishes the relevance of teaching about mapping. He argues that maps allow communities to locate themselves within the context of others, thus diminishing ethnocentrism. Second, Egan delineates binary opposites of self/other in order to have an exciting tension that the “story” can be built upon. Third, he organizes content into a story. His approach is to discuss the changing representations of the Earth in relation to the changing scientific understandings of the solar system. He also discusses the importance of personal, emotionally-charged mapping projects such as of past homes or family members’ childhood homes. Fourth, Egan concludes the unit by proposing a discussion back to the self/other tension. How does our understanding of ourselves change in relation to others? How can maps be seen from multiple perspectives? Lastly, Egan points out that standard evaluation practices do not capture the emotional growth and understanding that children can undergo throughout such a unit.

            Egan’s approach aims to engage students’ imaginations and creativity in order to deepen their understanding of themselves and the world. It acknowledges children as active participants in the learning process and argues for their emotional involvement as well. Egan discards the stale metaphor of children as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge (or as widgets on an assembly line) and proposes that we see children as imaginative, active beings eager to be engaged in learning and discovery. Since most teachers are interested in stimulating and encouraging children’s curiosity, Egan’s approach should be explored. It’s not without flaws (he rarely addresses power dynamics, his imaginative teaching approach does not question the role of the teacher as authority figure, and he doesn’t discuss children as decision makers); however, it is a rich starting point towards a critique of the industrial age mass education system.  

Part 3: Applying Egan’s storytelling strategy to studying habitats in grade 4 Science

            1. Identifying importance

·        Studying other species and their ways of life is an opportunity to question the meme of anthropocentrism that underpins contemporary society.

2. Finding binary opposites

·        Human/non-human

·        How can we understand ourselves in relation to (as opposed to in opposition to) other species?

3. Organizing content into story form

·        Habitats as different solutions to different problems that animals have faced evolutionarily, just as human beings have faced different challenges throughout our evolution. How did we solve our problems? How did they solve their problems? What adaptations did they evolve?

·        Exploring different points of view. Western scientific point of view on animal habitats. Aboriginal points of view on various animal habitats. Other species’ points of view on their own habitats.

4. Conclusion

·        Take away message is the continuity of life forms and their problem solving approaches.

5. Evaluation

·        Emphasis on the flexibility of thought. Could the children explore different points of view? Could they empathize with other species?